


gunpoint

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: FebuWhump2021, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Whump, gunpoint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29595909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: febuwhump day 20: gunpoint (alt no.9)“What’s the plan here?” Malcolm whispers. “Are you really going to kill me?”The cold metal barrel of the gun presses against his forehead.“Shut. Up.”
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright & Dani Powell
Comments: 16
Kudos: 52





	gunpoint

**Author's Note:**

> hi!!! i hope you like this fic :) it's definitely written as pre-brightwell but you can read it however you would like!

Malcolm stands outside the suspect’s apartment building, debating over whether or not he should text someone to let them know where he is. On one hand, if he gets into trouble, they’ll know where to find him, but on the other hand, if he tells them what he’s doing they might come and stop him from doing it. 

It’s quite the dilemma, one which is solved by a text arriving from Dani:  _ what are u doing tonight? _

_ You can’t tell anyone _

_ Do I really want to know? _

_ I’m at Paulsen’s apartment building _

His phone rings, and he answers it quickly to avoid the noise attracting attention. 

“You’re  _ at  _ the suspect’s apartment?”

“I’m not inside yet.” He steps into the building behind a man that’s just come in, and asks him to hold the elevator as he hurries across the lobby. “Now I am,” he tells Dani, pressing the button for the fifteenth floor. 

“You’re in - _Malcolm,”_ Dani says. “You’re  _ inside?” _

“Mm-hmm.”

“Don’t do anything too stupid. I’m coming. Give me ten minutes.”

“You really don’t have to -”

She hangs up before he can finish his sentence. The elevator reaches the fifteenth floor, doors sweeping open with a  _ ding. _

Malcolm steps out, taking a look around. This is the floor below where their suspect lives, but he’d gotten a weird feeling when they’d first come here to check the place out - apart from being the home of the suspect, the building had also been home to two of the three people who had been killed in the past five days. When they’d come asking about the murders, their suspect had been casual, unbothered, and entirely too welcoming given that two of his neighbors had just been brutally murdered. 

They’d done more digging on the man, and Malcolm had completed a profile, and all evidence pointed to him having done it. But it wasn’t enough, Malcolm knew - he could tell that there was something they weren’t seeing, something missing, and he was willing to bet it was in this apartment building. 

Hence why he’s here now, walking up and down the halls of the fifteenth floor, looking for something that he has no idea how to find. 

_ Maybe something like a utility closet? _ he wonders, approaching a wooden door with a sign proclaiming it off-limits to tenants. It’s older than the rest of the doors on the floor, and it creaks ominously when Malcolm opens it. 

There’s nothing there. A bucket. A circuit board. A water heater. A vent in the ceiling. 

_ This seems like a room that should be kept locked, _ he thinks, turning on his phone’s flashlight and peering behind the water heater. A simple sign isn’t enough to keep everyone out, and he doubts building management wants people to have access to the floor’s electricity. 

He heads back to the door to examine its doorknob, which  _ does  _ have a keyhole, as well as a chain lock on the inside. The keyhole is fairly scraped up with regular use, but the chain lock looks new. Malcolm wonders who might have a key, and who might have the motivation to install a secondary, interior, lock.

He pulls the door shut and turns back to the room, thoughts shifting away from  _ who has access to this place? _ to  _ who  _ **_wants_ ** _ access to this place?  _ He can’t imagine a utility person would need a chain lock, and thinks there must be a reason for it to have been installed.

Malcolm looks around, and his eyes land on the ceiling vent. It’s an average size, too small to fit a person through, but the right size for fitting smaller things through - murder weapons, for example. Among thousands of other things. But it’s an idea, anyway, so Malcolm grabs a small stepladder and places it beneath the vent, shining his flashlight up at it to get a better look. 

It seems to open into the floor of a room above him, but from what Malcolm can see through the metal, it’s not another closet. In fact, he thinks, it might be an apartment. He does some mental gymnastics and works out that it’s perfectly possible for the apartment above him to belong to their suspect. 

He turns on his phone to call Dani back and tell her his thoughts. 

“I’m almost in the parking lot,” she says, before he has a chance to say anything. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m in a utility closet on the fifteenth floor,” Malcolm replies, “and I think I might have found something.”

“What kind of something?”

“Uhh...it might be nothing. But there’s this vent in here, and I think it might open into Paulsen’s apartment.”

“...And?”

“That’s all I’ve got,” Malcolm admits. “Maybe you can come have a look for yourself, see what you think.”

“I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”

Malcolm figures it’s best to stay where he is and wait for Dani to come. While he waits, he busies himself with again looking up through the vent, standing on his tiptoes on the ladder to get a better view. 

The door to the closet opens with a loud, startling squeak, and Malcolm nearly falls off the ladder. “Dani,” he says, stepping down and turning around. “You scared me.”

His eyes fall on the person in the doorway - who is definitely  _ not  _ Dani.

“You’re...not Dani.”

Their suspect, Paulsen, smiles. “No, I am not,” he agrees, stepping into the room and pulling the door shut behind him. He slides the chain lock closed and switches off the lights. 

“Give me your phone,” he instructs Malcolm, holding out a hand in the light of the phone’s flashlight. 

“Why?”

Paulsen draws a gun from his jacket, turns off the safety, and aims it at Malcolm’s chest. “Because if you don’t, I’ll shoot you.”

Malcolm complies, handing over the phone. Paulsen turns off its flashlight, then throws it to the ground, smashing it under his foot. 

“Guess I have to get a new phone now,” Malcolm complains, not terribly anxious about the whole having-a-gun-pointed-at-him thing. “I might have to see about buying a stronger one, though.”

“Shut up,” Paulsen fairly growls, stepping closer to Malcolm, until Malcolm can physically feel him standing there. He imagines the gun, aimed straight at him in the dark. 

“What’s the plan here?” Malcolm whispers. “Are you really going to kill me?”

The cold metal barrel of the gun presses against his forehead.  _ “Shut. Up.” _

He shuts up. He doesn’t  _ want  _ to get shot. Especially not in the head. 

“Now listen to me,” Paulsen says, and he’s close enough that Malcolm can feel his breath on his face. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Are you here alone?”

Malcolm nods, forehead scraping against the gun. 

“Good. You’re going to leave this closet. I’ll be right behind you, so don’t think about trying anything dumb, okay?”

Malcolm nods again, swallowing hard. He can’t decide whether he wishes Dani would show up now or not.

“We’re going to walk out of here, nice and easy, down the hall, to the elevator, through the lobby. Got that?”

He nods a third time, hand starting to shake. He balls it into a fist.

“Then we are going to get into my car. I’ll drive, but this gun isn’t going to go away. You even  _ think  _ about running, and I’ll shoot you. Is all that clear?”

Another nod. He  _ really  _ doesn’t want to get into a car with this guy, but he very much believes what he’s saying. Plus, it might be a good way to understand him a little more, add information to his profile for his inevitable arrest. Which will come, Malcolm knows. Hopefully it comes before he gets shot.

They step out into the hallway, Malcolm first, the gun pressed into his back, digging into the skin with every step he takes. He feels his breath start to catch in his throat, feels his hands start to shake more, and tries desperately to stop the feeling of fear coursing through him. He’ll be fine. He’ll get out of this. 

They round a corner, the elevators in sight. Just then, one of them opens, and Paulsen drags Malcolm back around the corner, pressing the gun to the back of his head. Malcolm gets the message well enough and keeps his mouth shut. 

Footsteps draw near, and Paulsen curses under his breath. Malcolm’s heart is pounding now, and he has this terrible feeling that something really bad is about to happen. 

Paulsen pulls him backwards as the steps get closer, backing them down the hall, putting the gun again to Malcolm’s back, and kind of leaning against him, casually, as if to disguise the presence of the gun. 

The person rounds the corner, and even in the dim light, Malcolm can tell it’s Dani. She’s looking at her phone, muttering to herself, but she looks up about when she’s about halfway to Malcolm, and he sees her eyes widen in surprise. 

“Bright?”

The gun presses harder still into his back. “Hey, Dani, what’s up?” he calls out, aiming for casual but failing spectacularly. 

“What’s going on?”

_ “Who is that?” _ Paulsen hisses into Malcolm’s ear. 

“Colleague,” Malcolm replies, eyes trained on Dani, who is watching their conversation with a look of understanding on her face. 

“Make her leave,” Paulsen instructs, and Malcolm imagines his finger tightening on the trigger. 

“Do you think you could maybe turn around?” he asks, trying to ignore the slight shaking of his own voice. “Just leave. Get back to the elevator, down to the lobby…”

Dani shakes her head minutely. “That’s not gonna happen,” she says, her words not directed at Malcolm. “Let him go.”

“No,” Paulsen replies, and his voice is strong, unafraid. Malcolm doesn’t like that. It’s in line with his profile of the man, which he is at this moment really wishing he’d been wrong about. The guy is ruthless, but collected, meticulous...Malcolm has a feeling that he might very well be dying tonight. 

He doesn’t want to die tonight. He  _ really  _ doesn’t. He  _ has  _ to do something. 

He pushes himself forwards, feeling the metal of the gun leave his back, and runs, shouting at Dani to run, too. He sees her draw her gun, hears a shot, and another, feels something hit his shoulder, sending him spinning off balance. He hits the ground with the terrible realization that he doesn’t know  _ whose  _ gun had gone off. Who might be hurt.

He lies there in horrible uncertainty for a couple terrible seconds, his head spinning. His shoulder feels like he’s been punched, but he knows he’s been shot. And maybe Dani has been shot, too…

He stumbles to his feet, overcome for a moment with dizziness. When his vision clears, he sees Dani on the floor, kneeling over Paulsen, cuffing him. He’s bleeding from his leg, where, evidently, Dani had shot him. 

Malcolm watches silently as Dani wrestles the man to his feet and drags him along, phone to her ear, no doubt talking to Gil. She walks up to Malcolm, who instinctively backs away at the close presence of Paulsen. 

“You okay?” she asks, and Malcolm can only nod. He’s  _ not, _ though. He’s been shot, and he’s pretty sure it’s not serious, but he’s been  _ shot, _ and for a  _ long time _ he’d thought that he was  _ going  _ to be shot, and there had been the cold, unforgiving metal of the gun pressed to his skin to remind him of that fact, and he imagines the feeling is going to stick with him for quite some time, and his hands are shaking again and he can smell the metallic scent of his own blood, and he is overall  _ definitely  _ not okay. But he follows Dani and Paulsen into the elevator anyway, pressing a trembling hand to the wound on his shoulder, which, he can feel, is fortunately only a graze.

“Buses should be here any minute,” Dani says, as the group of three leave the building. “You gonna be okay til then?”

Malcolm nods again, sitting down heavily on the building’s concrete stoop. He watches Dani drag Paulsen along to stand on the curb, glad he’s farther away now. She looks down the street anxiously, and he sees her relax when the red and blue lights of police cars approach. 

Malcolm feels himself relax at their presence, too, sinking his body further into the cold concrete.  _ It’s going to be fine, _ he reminds himself, watching Dani hand over Paulsen to another officer. He  _ knows  _ it’s going to be fine. 

His body doesn’t seem to care about what his brain knows, though. He’s still shaking, not just his hands, now, but the rest of him, too. He’s breathing too heavily, and he can’t stop feeling a gun pressing into his back, is hyperaware of the blood slowly dripping down his shoulder despite his hand trying to hold it back. 

Dani sinks down on the step next to him and touches a hand to his arm. He startles, jerking away from her and hating himself for it. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” she says reassuringly. “Paulsen’s in custody and the ambulances are less than a minute out.”

He can’t bring himself to nod this time. He feels a shaky breath catch in his throat, and before he can stop himself there are tears pooling in his eyes. 

He sniffs and tries to make them go away, but it’s no use. His vision blurs up, swirling together the colors of the flashing lights around him. 

“Can I touch you?” Dani asks, and he finds he would actually really like that now, so he does nod this time, and then her arm is around him, very gentle and mindful of the gunshot wound on his left shoulder. Her hand touches his back, right where the gun had been, but feeling nothing at all like the gun had. 

“You’re shaking,” she points out, and carefully tugs him closer. “You cold?”

He shrugs with his right shoulder. “Not really. Just some lingering terror, I guess. Stupid.”

“Hey,” Dani says, her voice serious. “It’s not stupid to be scared. He had you at gunpoint, Malcolm. He  _ shot  _ you.”

“Ambulance’s here,” an officer Malcolm isn’t familiar with interrupts their conversation. “So’s Lieutenant Arroyo.”

With that information, Dani stands up, grabbing Malcolm’s right bicep and gently hauling him to his feet so he doesn’t have to let go of his shoulder. He lets her guide him to the ambulance, tears still clouding his vision. He sinks down onto a stretcher and sees Dani mouth  _ meet you at the hospital. _ He nods in acknowledgement as two paramedics hover over him, asking him questions he has no idea how to answer. 

“Just get moving,” he hears a wonderfully familiar voice say. “I’ll give you as much information as I’ve got, but let’s not waste time here.”

“Yes, sir,” says one of the paramedics, and with that, the ambulance doors shut and the engine starts. 

“Gil,” Malcolm says, locking eyes with him from across the ambulance. 

“Hey, kid,” Gil says, with a tight smile. “How you doing?”

“Not so good,” Malcolm replies, honestly. “Hurts.” In all honesty, it  _ doesn't  _ hurt that much, but saying it hurts is easier than explaining that he’s still scared, despite the fact that the threat has been completely removed, despite the fact that he  _ knows  _ he’s safe. 

“I know,” Gil says, reaching out a hand and grabbing Malcolm’s bloody one. “But it’s going to be okay.”

“I know.”

“Everything is going to be okay, you understand?”

“I know.”

“Good. But don’t you think you’re off the hook for this either. We  _ will  _ be having a talk as soon as we get you fixed up.”

“Okay.”

They arrive at the hospital a moment later, and Malcolm’s hand frantically reaches for Gil’s when he’s pulled away. 

“I’ll be right here when you wake up,” he hears Gil promise, as Malcolm is pushed through a set of doors.  _ “We’ll _ be right here.”

They’ll be there for him...Gil, Dani, probably Ainsley, and his mother, maybe JT, Edrisa...the thought is enough to make Malcolm almost smile. Maybe he really  _ is  _ going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading this fic, i hope you enjoyed it! i had some fun with it anyway :)


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